The current discourse on globalisation is all too often predicated upon the assumption that it is a phenomenon totally without precedent. Many see it as a tidal wave that will smash the barriers separating the human community into nations, races and tribes. True enough, certain aspects of the present wave of globalization -- its extent, reach and intensity, for instance -- have no parallel in history. But if globalization is essentially an encounter, or encounters, of cultures, we in Southeast Asia have been globalizing for centuries. And we have no hang-ups about coming into contact with traditions and beliefs that are different from ours.

Southeast Asia is a great bazaar of cultures, an agora of civilizations. The Ramayana dan Mahabharatha are sacred history to the Hindus, but they are also part of the folklore of the Buddhists of Indo China and the Muslims of Malaysia and Indonesia. The Angkor Wat and the Borobodur testify to the deep entrenchment and vivacity of Buddhist legacies in the region. And maritime Southeast Asia is the space where Islam uniquely manifests its moderate, multicultural and pragmatic character. The spread of Islam and its deeper understanding also has revolutionized the Malay mind, internationalizing its outlook and predisposing it to high philosophy. Cosmopolitanism runs deep in the Malay vein, as verbalized in the nineteenth century in that vast treasurehouse of collective ethnic wisdom -- the traditional pantun.

Buah delima berpangsa-pangsa
Sama jua bijinya merah
Jangan tuan berpilih bangsa
Sama jua darahnya merah

In other words, one should not be obsessed with lineage or ethnicity because blood is red, whatever one's skin colour.

Be that as it may, history has also taught us a bitter lesson. From our encounter with the Portuguese, we know that we should never carry our optimism and openness to extremes. We should open our door to the world, jut never tear it down. When the Portuguese first arrived in Malacca in the late fifteenth century, the Malays were fascinated with their strangely pink complexion, their build and their apparel. They crowded around these "white Bengalis," examining their clothing, stroking their heads, even twisting their beards. The Bendahara Sri Maharaja, or Prime Minister, out of sheer good will and compounded by naiveté, conferred the commander of the Portuguese ship robes of honour and adopted him as his son.

Had the Portuguese come only to trade, history might have taken a different turn. But they wanted to dominate and control trade. And Malacca was too strategic to be left alone. This encounter with an awesome new power is recorded in graphic detail by the author of the Malay Annal as a lession to posterity:

"And the Franks engaged the men of Malacca in battle, and they fired their cannons from ships so that the cannon balls came like rain. And the noise of the cannon was as the noise of thunder in the heavens and the flashes of fire from their guns were like flashes of lightning in the sky, and the noise of their matchlocks was like that of groundnuts popping in the frying pan."

Thus our multicultural background and historical experience have nurtured in us an attitude of guarded openness towards others, and this applies as well to contemporary globalization. We must not be filled with so much fear that we erect a fortress around us. But it is advisable to don a cultural coat of mail, so that we are not totally defenceless against the onslaught of the globalising cultures, especially the vile and prurient. It is understandable that many Asians are frightened by the prospect of being swamped by a deluge of images from cultures that have lost a sense of the sacred, that are marked by a confusion of values, that are undergoing moral decay and suffering from a collapse of the family institution. But so long as we remain circumspect and discriminating, globalization will be our ally rather than adversary. The technology avaible is a neutral vehicle for us to globalise our own culture and traditions.

We must approach globalization from a position of strength and confidence. Globalization has done us a good service, particularly in the economic sphere, a sphere in which the table has been turned, with the dominator fearing the loss of his domination. The precise reason why globalization has become the buzzword in Europe and North America is that it is set to change their economic fortunes. Since the rise of the Atlantic societies Asia has had to adjust itself to external elements and these centuries have prepared Asians to accommodate externally induced changes. Not so the Atlantic societies. Only their élites were involved in moving and shaking the world; the rest of them have remained in their comfortable isolation, oblivious to what was happening to the rest of the world. But now that Asian goods are flooding their market, and their jobs are threatened by global competition, they are experiencing a rude awakening.

It is somewhat ironical that globalization, which tends towards uniformity, is happening in an era of pronounced religious revival, resurgent nationalism and intense assertion of cultural identity. More than any other cultural force, religion will become the singular most important force resisting the tendency towards uniformity. It is religion that will become the moral armour against the battery nature and ethical roots. It is religion that will become the moral armour against sensate culture and ensure that we remain faithful to our own primordial nature and ethical roots. It is religion that will ensure that the world remains multicultural, rather than being dominated by a single Colossus. But globalization has set the stage for an encounter of religions on an unprecedented scale. Peaceful co-existence demands understanding, tolerance and mutual respect. The overwhelming presence of a single religion in the West has limited its ability to deal with the Other. Thus they conjure the spectre of clashes of cultures and civilizations wherever such encounters occur. Southeast Asia, on the other hand, has all the time been a fertile garden where various strains of spirituality have flowered. The faithful of various persuasions have learnt to live together harmoniously. Likewise globalization entails a coexistence among believers of different creeds founded upon tolerance and mutual respect. And the cultivation of universal perspectives, rooted in the structure of every tradition and expounded by their great sages, will add to the depth of the encounter.

Next year will mark the 500th year since the arrival of Vasco Da Gama in Calicut. That event, according to K.M. Pannikar, ushered in a new epoch in Asian history. It was a watershed event, for with it Asia was absorbed into a new global system based on domination. From centre stage, we were pushed to the periphery, thus becoming an insignificant component of the global order. After half a millennium we are going back full circle. The present wave of globalization and information revolution has transformed the global scenario. Technology has exploded away patterns and structures of dominance, be it the dominance of the North over the South or of the South's élites over their societies. And the impact is devastating at both the international and domestic levels. In fact the distinction between what is domestic and what is foreign has blurred as every village becomes globalized. The economic empowerment of Asia has tipped the balance of the global economic order and will eventually influence the global political arrangement. Likewise, the cultural reempowerment of Asia will be a tremendous force in the shaping of the new global cultural order. But this possibility can be realized only if there is a genuine intellectual and cultural revival. Asia has drunk from the sap of Western culture and tasted the sweet and the bitter. But the rediscovery of our rich intellectual and cultural heritage has only just begun. The West has kept its intellectual and cultural torches burning, drawing fuel from both its old and new traditions. And this is the reason it has been able to pound at Asia with such vigour and persuasion. We will not to any significant degree contribute to the making of the new global culture if we remain asleep upon our treasure chest of wisdom, science and art, instead of drawing from its infinitely variegated contents to give birth to new expressions. The technology driving the current phase of globalisation must serve as a vehicle that brings about our great re-awakening.